Live TV viewing losing out to 'catch-ups'

LONDON, March 20 (UPI) -- A third of Britons no longer watch live television, either accessing content via Web-based catch-up sites or through personal video recorders, a poll indicates.

To find out how prevalent time-shifted and on-demand viewing was throughout Britain, nearly 2,000 Britons were polled, The Daily Telegraph reported.

To the question "Do you tend to watch programs when they first air on the television?" 36 percent replied "no."

Of those answering in the negative, 74 percent said they caught up with the programs they wanted to watch on the weekend.

A quarter of them said they used "watch on demand sites" such as the BBC iPlayer, ITV player and Channel 4 On Demand, while almost half said they had access to personal video recorders that allowed them to record live television for viewing later.

Two percent of the poll respondents said they did not own a television because they could watch the programs they wanted on their computers.

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